Farther into the desert.
Sandhills crowned with stones.
Natives' smokes and footprints seen.
Weakened camels.
Native well.
Ten days' waterless march.
Buzoe's grave.
A region of desolation.
Eagles.
Birds round the well.
Natives hovering near.
Their different smokes.
Wallaby.
Sad Solitude's triumphant reign.
The Alfred and Marie range once more.
The Rawlinson range and Mount Destruction.
Australia twice traversed.
Fort McKellar.
Tyndall's Springs.
A last search after Gibson.
Tommy's Flat.
The Circus.
The Eagle.
Return to Sladen Water.
The Petermann tribes.
Marvellous Mount Olga.
Glen Watson.
Natives of the Musgrave range.
A robbery.
Cattle camps.
The missing link.
South for the Everard range.
Everard natives.
Show us a watering-place.
Alec and Tommy find water.
More natives.
Compelled to give up their plunder.
Natives assist at dinner.
Like banyan-trees.
A bad camping-place.
Natives accompany us.
Find the native well.
The Everard revisited.
Gruel thick and slab.
Well in the Ferdinand.
Rock-hole water.
Natives numerous and objectionable.
Mischief brewing.
A hunt for spears.
Attack frustrated.
Taking an observation.
A midnight foe.
The next morning.
Funeral march.
A new well.
Change of country.
Approaching the telegraph line.
The Alberga.
Decrepit native women.
The Neales.
Mount O'Halloran.
The telegraph line.
Dry state of the country.
Hann's Creek.
Arrival at the Peake.
On the 11th of June I was delighted to be able to be again upon the
move, and leave this detestable poisonous place and our fifteen-foot
shaft behind. Our only regret was that we had been compelled to remain
so long. The camels had nearly all been poisoned, some very much worse
than others; but all looked gaunt and hollow-eyed, and were
exceedingly weak and wretched, one remarkable exception being noticed
in Alec Ross's riding-cow, old Buzoe, who had either not eaten the
poison plant, or had escaped untouched by it. Our course was now east
by north, and as we got farther into the desert, I noticed that
occasionally some of the undulations of sand were crowned with stones,
wherever they came from. Where these stones crop up a growth of
timber, generally mulga, occurs with them. It is sandstone that tips
these rises. Some smokes of native fires were seen from our line of
march, in northerly and southerly directions, and occasionally the
footprints upon the sands, of some wandering child of the desert.
These were the only indications we could discover of the existence of
primordial man upon the scene. We passed a few grass-trees, which are
usually called "black boys" in almost every part of the continent
where they exist, and they seem to range over nearly the whole of
Australia, from Sydney to Perth, south of the Tropic. The camels were
so weak that to-day we could only accomplish about eighteen miles. At
five miles, on the following morning, we passed a hollow with some
mulga acacia in it. Near them Alec and I found a place where the
number of deserted huts, or gunyahs of the natives induced us to look
about for a well or some other kind of watering-place. An old well was
soon found, which was very shallow; the water was slightly brackish
and not more than three feet below the surface. How I wished I had
known of its existence before, it being not twenty-five miles from our
poison camp, and that some good acacia bushes grew here also; as it
was, I made no use of it. The weather being cool, and the camels
having filled themselves with water at the deep well, they would not
drink. That afternoon we got into a hollow where there was a low ridge
of flat-topped cliffs, and a good deal of mulga timber in it. Very
likely in times of rain a flow of water might be found here, if there
ever are times of rain in such a region. We just cleared the valley by
night, having travelled nearly twenty miles. My latitude here was 23
degrees 56' 20" and not desiring to go any farther north, I inclined
my course a little southerly--that is to say, in an east by south
direction.
We had left the deep well on the 9th June, and not until ten days of
continuous travelling had been accomplished--it being now the
18th--did we see any more water. That evening we reached a little
trifling water-channel, with a few small scattered white gum-trees,
coming from a low stony mulga-crowned ridge, and by digging in it we
found a slight soakage of water. Here we dug a good-sized tank, which
the water partly filled, and this enabled us to water all the camels.
They had travelled 230 miles from our deep well. For the last two or
three days poor old Buzoe, Alec Ross's riding cow, has been very ill,
and almost unable to travel; she is old and worn out, poor old
creature, having been one of Sir Thomas Elder's original importations
from India. She had always been a quiet, easy-paced old pet, and I was
very much grieved to see her ailing. I did not like to abandon her,
and we had to drag her with a bull camel and beat her along, until she
crossed this instalment of Gibson's Desert: but she never left this
spot, which I have named Buzoe's Grave. I don't think this old cow had
been poisoned--at least she never showed any signs of it; I believe it
was sheer old age and decay that assailed her at last. The position of
this welcome watered spot was in latitude 24 degrees 33', and
longitude 123 degrees 57'. It was by wondrous good fortune that we
came upon it, and it was the merest chance that any water was there.
In another day or two there would have been none; as it was, only a
little rainwater, that had not quite ceased to drain down the
half-stony, half-sandy bed of the little gully, was all we got. The
weather had been very disagreeable for some days past, the thermometer
in the early dawn generally indicating 18 degrees while in the middle
of the day the heat was oppressive.
The flies were still about us, in persecuting myriads. The nature of
the country during this march was similar to that previously
described, being quite open, it rolled along in ceaseless undulations
of sand. The only vegetation besides the ever-abounding spinifex was a
few blood-wood-trees on the tops of some of the red heaps of sand,
with an occasional desert oak, an odd patch or clump of mallee-trees,
standing desolately alone, and perhaps having a stunted specimen or
two of the quandong or native peach-tree, and the dreaded Gyrostemon
growing among them. The region is so desolate that it is horrifying
even to describe. The eye of God looking down on the solitary caravan,
as with its slow, and snake-like motion, it presents the only living
object around, must have contemplated its appearance on such a scene
with pitying admiration, as it forced its way continually on; onwards
without pausing, over this vast sandy region, avoiding death only by
motion and distance, until some oasis can be found. Slow as eternity
it seems to move, but certain we trust as death; and truly the
wanderer in its wilds may snatch a fearful joy at having once beheld
the scenes, that human eyes ought never again to see. On the 15th of
June we found a hollow in which were two or three small salt-lake
beds, but these were perfectly dry; on the 16th also another solitary
one was seen, and here a few low rises lay across a part of the
eastern horizon. On the 17th a little water left in the bottom of a
bucket overnight was frozen into a thick cake in the morning, the
thermometer indicating 18 degrees. The nights I pass in these fearful
regions are more dreadful than the days, for "night is the time for
care, brooding o'er days misspent, when the pale spectre of despair
comes to our lonely tent;" and often when I lay me down I fall into a
dim and death-like trance, wakeful, yet "dreaming dreams no mortals
had ever dared to dream before."
The few native inhabitants of these regions occasionally burn every
portion of their territories, and on a favourably windy day a spinifex
fire might run on for scores of miles. We occasionally cross such
desolated spaces, where every species of vegetation has been by flames
devoured. Devoured they are, but not demolished, as out of the roots
and ashes of their former natures, phoenix-like, they rise again. A
few Australian eagles are occasionally seen far up in the azure sky,
hovering with astonished gaze, over the unwonted forms below; and as
the leading camels of the caravan frighten some wretched little
wallaby from its lair under a spinifex bunch, instantly the eagle
swoops from its height, and before the astonished creature has had
time to find another refuge he is caught in the talons of his foe. We
also are on the watch, and during the momentary struggle, before the
eagle can so quiet his victim as to be able to fly away with it, up
gallops Reechy, Alec and Tommy, and very often we secure the prize.
Round this spot at Buzoe's Grave, just while the water lasts I
suppose, there were crows, small hawks, a few birds like cockatoos,
and many bronze-winged pigeons. Some natives also were hovering near,
attracted probably by the sight of strange smoke. The natives of these
regions signal with different kinds of smoke by burning different
woods or bark, and know a strange smoke in an instant. Some smokes
which they make, go up like a thin white column, others are dark and
tower-like, while others again are broad and scattered. These natives
would not come to visit us. The small marsupial wallaby, which I
mentioned just now, exists throughout the whole of these deserts; they
live entirely without water, as do many small birds we occasionally
see where there is a patch of timber. The wallabies hide during the
day amongst the spinifex bushes, and feed, like other rodents, on
their roots at night. Another way of getting some of these wallabies
was by knocking them over, blackfellow fashion, with a short stick,
when startled from their hiding-places. Tommy used to work very hard
at this game, and we usually got one a day for food for our little
dogs. They are exceedingly good eating, being very like rabbits in
size and taste. We remained at this little oasis, I suppose I may call
it--at least it was so to us, though I should not like to return to it
with any expectation of getting water again, for when we left, the
water had ceased to drain in, and there were only a few pints of thick
muddy fluid left in the tank at the end of our three days' rest. The
place might well be termed the centre of silence and solitude; despair
and desolation are the only intruders here upon sad solitude's
triumphant reign. Well may the traveller here desire for more
inhabited lands; rather to contend with fierce and warlike men; to
live amongst far noisier deaths, or die amid far louder dangers! I
often declare that:--
"I'll to Afric lion haunted,
Baboons blood I'll daily quaff;
And I'll go a tiger-hunting
On a thorough-bred giraffe."
Whenever we had east winds in this region, the weather was cool and
agreeable; but when they blow from any other quarter, it becomes much
hotter, and the flies return in myriads to annoy us. Where they get
to when an east wind blows, the east wind only knows.
Leaving Buzoe's Grave, which had proved a godsend to us, with a swarm
of eagles, crows, hawks, vultures, and at night wild dogs, eating up
her carcase, in four days' farther travel we neared the spot from the
west, where the Alfred and Marie Ranges lie. The first sight of these
ranges from the east, had cost my former horse expedition into this
region so dear. I could not help believing that the guiding hand of a
gracious Providence had upon that occasion prevented me from obtaining
my heart's desire to reach them; for had I then done so, I know now,
having proved what kind of country lay beyond that, neither I nor any
of my former party would ever have returned. Assuredly there is a
Providence that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will. These
hills were in reality much lower than they appeared to be, when looked
at from the east; in fact, they were so low and uninteresting, that I
did not investigate them otherwise than with field-glasses. We passed
by the northern end, and though the southern end was a little higher,
I could see that there were no watering-places possible other than
chance rock receptacles, and of these there were no signs. At the
northern end we came upon a small shallow kind of stony pan, where a
little rain-water was yet lying, proving that the rains we had
experienced in May, before leaving the western watershed, must have
extended into the desert. We reached this drop of water on the 25th of
June, and the camels drank it all up while we rested on the 26th.
After five days' more travelling over the same kind of desert as
formerly described, except that the sand-mounds rose higher yet in
front of us, still progressing eastwards, the well-remembered features
of the Rawlinson Range and the terrible Mount Destruction rose at last
upon my view.
On reaching the range, I suppose I may say that the exploring part of
my expedition was at an end, for I had twice traversed Australia; and
although many hundreds of miles had yet to be travelled before we
should reach the abodes of civilisation, the intervening country had
all been previously explored by myself. For a full account of my
former explorations into this region, I must refer my reader to the
chapters on my second expedition. The first water we reached in the
Rawlinson Range was at a rock-hole about ten miles eastwards from the
Circus water, the place from whence Gibson and I started to explore to
the west. His death, the loss of all the horses, and my struggles to
regain my depot on foot, are they not written in the chronicles of
that expedition?
On reaching my former depot at Fort McKellar, I found the whole place
so choked up with shrubs and bushes, that it was quite impossible to
camp there, without wasting a week in cutting the vegetation away,
although it had formerly been sufficiently open for an explorer's
camp. The spring was running as strong as ever. The bridge had been
washed away. However, at less than a mile from it, there was Tyndall's
Spring, with an open shady space, among the clump of fine gum-trees,
which gave us an excellent camping-place. Here the camp remained for
some days. A line of green bulrushes fringed this spring. While the
main party camped here, I once more tried to find some remains or
traces of my lost companion Gibson, taking with me only Tommy Oldham.
It was quite a forlorn hope, as Gibson had gone away with only one
horse; and since we reached the range, we had passed over places where
I knew that all the horses I then had with me had gone over the
ground, but no signs of former horse-tracks could be seen, therefore
the chance of finding any traces of a single animal was infinitesimal.
Tommy and I expended three days in trying to discover traces, but it
was utterly useless, and we returned unsuccessful to the depot.
Singular to say, on this attempt I found a place west from the end,
the Rawlinson Range, where there were some rock-holes on a grassy
mulga flat, but we did not require the water, as the camels would not
drink. Had I come upon this spot when I was in this region before, it
might have saved Gibson and all the horses that were lost with him. I
called this little watered spot, Tommy's Flat; the latitude of it is
24 degrees 52' 3". It bears 9 degrees south of west from a peculiar
red sandhill that is visible from any of the hills at the western
extremity of the Rawlinson Range; and lies in a flat or hollow between
the said red sandhill, and the nearest of a few low stony hills, about
four miles farther away to the west. On visiting the Circus, I found
the water-hole was full and deep. This was very different from its
state when I had seen it last. The recording eagle still was sitting
immovable on his crag, Prometheus-like, apparently chained to the
rock.
On the 11th of July, the main party having been encamped at Tyndall's
Springs for seven days, we departed for Sladen Water, at the Pass of
the Abencerrages. All the other places previously mentioned on the
range, had plenty of water running on for ever, though at the Pass the
supply was rather lower than I had seen it previously. There was,
however, quite enough for all our requirements. The little sweet-water
spring was bubbling up, and running over as of yore. Both at Fort
McKellar and here I found that the bones of the horses we had smoked
and eaten had been removed by the natives, or wild dogs. At Fort
McKellar the smoke-house frame had either fallen or been knocked down;
while here, at the Pass, the natives had removed the timber, and
placed portions of it in different places and positions. We saw none
of the natives belonging to the range, although their smokes were a
very short distance away. Sladen Water was always a favourite spot
with me, and we rested a day at it for old association's sake.
On the 14th of July we left the place, and travelled along my former
route, via Gill's Pinnacle, and all the other watering-places
mentioned in my preceding narrative. The Petermann Range looked green
and beautiful. It had evidently been visited by rains. A portion of
the Rawlinson and the Petermann Ranges were the only spots for
hundreds of miles of which this could be said. The Hull here runs near
the boundary of the two colonies of South, and Western Australia, and
crossing it, we entered the former province once more. When nearly at
the eastern end of the Petermann--that is to say, close to Mount
Phillips--we camped in Winter's Glen, where the whole tribes of the
Petermann were located. They instantly armed themselves, and
endeavoured to prevent our progress. Several of them recognised me,
and I them; for in my first visit to this range, with Tietkens, we had
three encounters with them. They evidently intended mischief again;
but they kept off until morning, and we then, being in full marching
order, with our firearms in our hands, and all walking alongside of
the camels and ready for attack, managed to pass away from them
without a collision. Leaving their country behind us, we went via the
Sugar-loaf, and thence to the Musgrave Ranges, not now revisiting the
marvellous Mount Olga; we entered the range near Glen Watson. There
was plenty of water in the glen, but the country, in general, about
the range, was in a very dry state. As, however, it has permanent
springs, we had no difficulty from want of water. When nearly at the
eastern end of the Musgrave Range, a number of natives came to
interview the caravan, and actually pulled some coats and blankets off
Nicholls's and Tommy's riding camels, and ran away with them. They had
previously begged Nicholls to shoot kangaroos for them, thereby
showing that they remembered the use of firearms, which formerly I had
been compelled to teach them.
(ILLUSTRATION: GLEN FERDINAND.)
I was away from the party when this robbery was committed. Near the
eastern end of this range it will be remembered I had formerly
discovered a large watercourse, with a fine spring running along its
bed, which I called the Ferdinand; here we encamped again. From hence
I determined to reach the South Australian Telegraph Line upon a new
route, and to follow the Ferdinand, which runs to the south. A mass of
hills that I had formerly seen and named the Everard Ranges, lay in
that direction, and I desired to visit them also. At and around the
water at Glen Ferdinand, as well as at other places on this range,
considerable quantities of dung, old tracks, and sleeping camps of
cattle were found, but no live animals were seen.
After resting a day at Glen Ferdinand we departed, following the banks
of the creek. Just at leaving, an old black man and two lads made
their appearance. This old party was remarkably shy; the elder boy
seemed a little frightened, and didn't relish being touched by a white
man, but the youngest was quite at his ease, and came up to me with
the audacity and insouciance of early youth, and pulled me about. When
I patted him, he grinned like any other monkey. None of them were
handsome; the old man was so monkey-like--he would have charmed the
heart of Professor Darwin. I thought I had found the missing link, and
I had thoughts of preserving him in methylated spirits, only I had not
a bottle large enough.
Following the channel of the Ferdinand nearly south, we came to some
limestone rises with one or two native wells, but no water was seen in
them. The country was good, grassy, nearly level, with low, sandy,
mulga rises, fit for stock of any kind. There were a few detached
granite hills, peeping here and there amongst the tree-tops. The
creek-channel appeared to run through, or close to, some of the hills
of the Everard Ranges; and I left it to visit them. At one of the
outcropping granite mounds, at about forty-eight miles from Glen
Ferdinand, Alec Ross found a large native well, which bore 12 degrees
east of south from Mount Ferdinand, a conspicuous point overlooking
the glen. We did not require to use this well, but there was plenty of
water in it. Arriving at the first hills of the Everard, I found they
were all very peculiar, bare, red, granite mounds, being the most
extraordinary ranges one could possibly imagine, if indeed any one
could imagine such a scene. They have thousands of acres of bare rock,
piled up into mountainous shapes and lay in isolated masses, forming
something like a broken circle, all round a central and higher mass.
They have valleys filled with scrubs between each section. Numerous
rocky glens and gorges were seen, having various kinds of shrubs and
low trees growing in the interstices of the rocks. Every thing and
every place was parched, bare, and dry. We searched in many places for
water without success.
At length some natives made their appearance, and showed us where
water could be had by digging. This was a most disagreeable and
awkward spot to get the camels to, but after a great deal of labour in
making a tank, and rolling boulders of rock out of the way, we were
enabled to give them a drink. There was but a very poor supply.
The water we got here was in a small gum-creek under the highest hill
in the centre of the group upon its northern face. The summit of the
hill above it bore 21 degrees east of south, from Mount Ferdinand, in
the Musgrave Ranges, and it is sixty-four miles from my camp at Glen
Ferdinand water. Alec and Tommy searched for, and found, some other
water in rock-holes at the back or south side of this central hill,
nearly three miles round. Several more natives came to the camp, and
some of them worked a little at watering the camels, but were greatly
scandalised at seeing them drink such enormous quantities, and no
doubt, in their heart of hearts, they were grieved that they had shown
us the place. And in order to recoup themselves in some measure for
their romantic generosity, they quietly walked away with several
unconsidered trifles out of the camp, such as ration bags, towels,
socks, etc. These thefts always occur when I am away. I made one old
gentleman who took some things disgorge his loot, and he and his
friend who had dined with us went away, in the last stage of
displeasure. There are apparently but few natives about here just now;
had there been more of them we might have had some trouble, as indeed
I subsequently had at the rock-holes at the back of this hill.
The following day we went round to Alec's rock-holes, intending to
have dinner, water the camels if they would drink, and fill our casks
before plunging again into the scrubs that extended everywhere to the
south. To the east a flat-topped, bluff-faced hill was visible. While
we were at dinner several natives came and assisted us, and pointed in
a direction a little west of south, where they said water existed. The
whole space round the foot of the rocks here is choked up with a thick
and vigorous growth of the native fig-trees, which grow somewhat like
banyan-trees, except that suckers do not descend from the upper
branches and take root in the ground alongside the parent stem; but
the roots of this tree run along the rocks to find crevices with soil,
and then a fresh growth springs up; in general it does not grow very
high, twenty feet is about the limit. There was a small creek channel,
and mulga scrubs to the west of it, that grew right up to the bank,
and any party camping here would be completely hemmed in. I am
particular in describing the place, as on a subsequent occasion,
myself and the party then with me, escaped death there. I will relate
the circumstances further on. Now we left the place after dinner, and
the natives accompanied us; we camped in mulga scrubs at about ten
miles from the rocks. These young darkies seemed very good, and
friendly fellows; in all wild tribes of Australian natives, the boys
and very young men, as well as the girls and women, seem to take
immediately to white men. The young children, however, are generally
very much frightened; but it is the vile and wicked old men that are
the arch-villains of the piece, and who excite the passions of the
juniors of the tribe to commit all sorts of atrocities.
These fellows were the best of friends with my men and myself; we were
laughing and joking and generally having a good time. I amused them
greatly by passing a stick through my nose; I had formerly gone
through an excruciating operation for that purpose, and telling them I
once had been a black fellow. They spoke but little English, and it
was mostly through a few words that Alec Ross knew, of the Peake,
Macumba, or Alberga tribes that we could talk to each other at all.
After this we got them map-making on the sand. They demonstrated that
the Ferdinand, which we had left, and had still on our right or west
of us, running south, swept round suddenly to the eastwards and now
lay across the country in front of us; that in its further progress it
ran into, and formed a lake, then continuing, it at last reached a big
salt lake, probably Lake Eyre; they also said we should get water by
digging in the sand in the morning, when we struck the Ferdinand
channel again. Soon after we started and were proceeding on our
course, south 26 degrees west, from the rock-water, the natives all
fell back and we saw no more of them. In twenty miles we came to the
creek, and turning down its channel eastwards we found the well of
which they had told us. There was plenty of water in it, no doubt, but
we did not require it. The well seemed rather deep. We followed the
creek for some distance, at length it became very undefined, and the
gum timber disappeared. Only a few acacia bushes now indicated the
flow of the water over the grassy mulga flats, which wound about so
much around sandhills in the scrub, that I left the creek, and pushed
on now for the South Australian Telegraph Line.
I will now give a rapid account of what I said was a narrow escape
from death at those rock-holes we had just left. I may say in passing,
that what I have recorded as my travels and explorations in Australia
in these volumes, are probably not half of what I have really
performed, only I divide them under the two headings of public and
private explorations.
In the month of December, 1882, I was in this part of the world again.
During the six years that had elapsed since my last visit in 1876, a
survey party had reached these ranges on a trigonometrical survey, and
upon its return, the officer in charge reported having had some
trouble and a collision with the natives of the Everard Range. I
suppose my second visit occurred two years after that event. I was
accompanied on that journey by a very young friend, named Vernon
Edwards, from Adelaide, and two young men named Perkins and Fitz, the
latter being cook, and a very good fellow he proved to be, but Perkins
was nothing of the sort. I had a black boy named Billy, and we had
twelve camels. I approached the Everard Range from the south-westward,
having found a good watering-place, which I called Verney's Wells, in
that direction. There, we met a lot of natives who did not belong to
the Everard Range tribes. At Verney's Wells we had a grand corrobboree
in the warm moonlight; my young men and black boy stripped themselves,
and young and old, black and white, danced and yelled, and generally
made the night hideous with their noise till early morning. After the
ball a grand supper was laid for our exhausted blackmen and brothers.
The material of this feast was hot water, flour, and sugar mixed into
a consistent skilly. I had told the cook to make the gruel thick and
slab, and then pour it out on sheets of bark. Our guests supplied
themselves with spoons, or rather we cut them out of bark for them,
and they helped themselves ad lib. A dozen pounds of flour sufficed to
feed a whole multitude. We left Verney's Wells and made up to the well
in the Ferdinand that I have just mentioned. This we opened out with
shovels, and found a very good supply of water. From thence we
proceeded to my old dinner-camp at the range, where, as I said before,
the whole space about, was filled up with fig-trees. Almost
immediately upon our appearance, we heard the calls and cries and saw
the signal smokes, of the natives. We had to clear a space for the
camp and put up an awning. The water in the two lower holes was so low
that the camels could not reach it, nor could we get enough out with a
bucket. There was plenty of water in the holes above, and as it was
all bare rock we set to work, some of the natives assisting, to bale
the water out of some of the upper holes and splash it over the rocks
into the lower. The weather was very hot, and some of the old men sat
or lay down quite at their ease in our shade. The odours that exude
from the persons of elderly black gentlemen, especially those not
addicted to the operation of bathing, would scarcely remind one of the
perfumes of Araby the Blest, or Australia Felix either, therefore I
ordered these intruders out. Thereupon they became very saucy and
disagreeable, and gave me to understand that this was their country
and their water--carpee--and after they had spoken in low guttural
tones to some of the younger men, the latter departed. Of course I
knew what this meant; they were to signal for and collect, all the
tribe for an attack. I could read this purpose in their glances. I
have had so much to do with these Australian peoples that, although I
cannot speak all their languages--for nearly every ten miles a totally
different one may be used--yet a good deal of the language of several
tribes is familiar to me, and all their gestures speak to me in
English. I could at any rate now see that mischief was brewing. Near
sundown we spread a large tarpaulin on the ground to lay our blankets,
rugs, etc., to sleep on. When I had arranged my bed, several old men
standing close by, the master-fiend, deliberately threw himself down
on my rugs. I am rather particular about my rugs and bedding, and this
highly though disagreeably perfumed old reptile, all greasy with
rotten fat, lying down on and soiling them, slightly annoyed me; and
not pretending to be a personification of sweetness and light, I think
I annoyed him a great deal more, for I gave him as good a thrashing
with a stick as he ever received, and he went away spitting at us,
bubbling over with wrath and profanity, and called all the tribe after
him, threatening us with the direst retribution. They all went to the
west, howling, yelling, and calling to one another.
Young Verney Edwards was always most anxious to get a lot of natives'
spears and other weapons, and I said, "Now, Verney, here's a chance
for you. You see the blacks have cleared out to the west, now if you
go up the foot of the hill to the east, the first big bushy tree you
see, you will find it stuck thick with spears. You can have them all
if you like. But," I added, "it's just suppertime now, you had better
have supper first." "Oh no," he said, "I'll go and get them at once if
you think they are there," and away he went. I was expecting the enemy
to return, and we had all our firearms in readiness alongside of us on
the tarpaulin where we sat down to supper. I had a cartridge-pouch
full of cartridges close to my tin plate, and my rifle lay alongside
also. Jimmy Fitz, Perkins, Billy the black boy, and I, had just begun
to eat when we heard a shot from Verney's revolver. I did not take
very much notice, as he was always firing at wallaby, or birds, or
anything; but on another shot following we all jumped up, and ran
towards him. As we did so we heard Verney calling and firing again;
Perkins seized my cartridge pouch in his excitement, and I had to get
more cartridges from my saddle. In the meantime shots were going off,
howls and yells rent the air, and when I got up the enemy had just
formed in line. Another discharge decided the conflict, and drove them
off.
When Verney left the camp he found a bushy tree, as I had told him,
stuck full of spears, and while he was deliberating as to which of
those weapons he should choose, being on the west side of the bush, he
suddenly found himself surrounded by a host of stealthy wretches, most
of whom were already armed, all running down towards the camp. Some
ran to this bush for their weapons, and were in the act of rushing
down on to the camp, and would have speared us as we sat at supper, at
their ease, from behind the thick fig-trees' shelter. Verney was so
astounded at seeing them, and they were so astounded at seeing him,
that it completely upset their tactics; for they naturally thought we
were all there, and when Verney fired, it so far checked the advance
column, that they paused for a second, while the rear guard ran up.
Then some from behind threw spears through the bush at Verney. He
fired again, and called to us, and we arrived in time to send the
enemy off, as fast as, if not faster, than they had come. It was a
very singular circumstance that turned these wretches away; if Verney
hadn't gone for the spears, they could have sneaked upon, and killed
us, without any chance of our escape. We must have risen a good deal
in their estimation as strategists, for they were fairly
out-generalled by chance, while they must have thought it was design.
After the dispersion, they reappeared on the top of the rocks some
distance away, and threw spears down; but they were too far off; and
when we let them see how far our rifle bullets could be sent, they
gave several parting howls and disappeared.
I decided to keep watch to-night; there was a star passing the
meridian soon after eleven, and I wished to take an observation by it.
I told the others to turn in, as I would watch till then. Nearly at
the time just mentioned, I was seated cross-legged on my rugs facing
the north, taking my observation with the sextant and artificial
horizon, when I thought I saw something faintly quivering at the
corner of my left eye. I kept the sextant still elevated, and turned
my head very slowly half way round, and there I saw the enemy,
creeping out of the mulga timber on the west side of the little creek
channel, and ranging themselves in lines. It was a very dusky, cloudy,
but moonlight night. I dared not make any quick movement, but slowly
withdrawing my right hand from the sextant, I took hold of my rifle
which lay close alongside. A second of time was of the greatest
importance, for the enemy were all ranged, and just ready balancing
their spears, and in another instant there would have been a hundred
spears thrown into the camp. I suddenly put down the sextant, and
having the rifle almost in position, I grabbed it suddenly with my
left hand and fired into the thickest mob, whereupon a horrible
howling filled the midnight air. Seizing Verney's rifle that was close
by, I fired it and dispersed the foe. All the party were lying fast
asleep on the tarpaulin, but my two shots quickly awoke them. I made
them watch in turns till morning, with orders to fire two rifle
cartridges every half hour, and the agony of suspense in waiting to
hear these go off, kept me awake the whole night, like Carlyle and his
neighbours' fowls.
Our foes did not again appear. At the first dawn of light, over at
some rocky hills south-westward, where, during the night, we saw their
camp fires, a direful moaning chant arose. It was wafted on the hot
morning air across the valley, echoed again by the rocks and hills
above us, and was the most dreadful sound I think I ever heard; it was
no doubt a death-wail. From their camp up in the rocks, the chanters
descended to the lower ground, and seemed to be performing a funereal
march all round the central mass, as the last tones we heard were from
behind the hills, where it first arose.
To resume: we left the almost exhausted channel of the Ferdinand, and
pushed on for the Telegraph Line. In the sandhills and scrub we came
upon an open bit of country, in latitude 27 degrees 35' 34", and found
a shallow well, at which we encamped on the evening of August 11th. In
sixty miles farther, going nearly east by north, the nature of the
country entirely altered; the scrubs fell off, and an open stony
country, having low, flat-topped ridges or table-lands, succeeded.
This was a sure indication of our near approach to the Telegraph Line,
as it is through a region of that kind, that the line runs in this
latitude. I turned more northerly for a waterhole in the Alberga,
called Appatinna, but we found it quite dry. There were two decrepit
old native women, probably left there to starve and die by their
tribe. I gave them some food and water, but they were almost too far
gone to eat. From thence, travelling south-easterly, we came upon the
Neale's River, in forty miles. At twenty miles farther down the
Neale's, which was quite dry as far as we travelled on it, going
easterly, we arrived at Mount O'Halloran, a low hill round whose base
the Trans-Continental Telegraph Line and road sweeps, at what is
called the Angle Pole, sixty miles from the Peake Telegraph Station.
We were very short of water, and could not find any, the country being
in a very dry state. We pushed on, and crossed the stony channel of a
watercourse called the St. Cecilia, which was also dry. The next water
that I knew of, between us and the Peake, was a spring near Hann's
Creek, about thirty miles from the Peake. However, on reaching Hann's
Creek, we found sufficient water for our requirements, although it was
rather brackish. Moving on again we reached the Peake Telegraph
Station on the 23rd of August, and were most cordially received and
welcomed by my old friend Mr. Chandler, Mr. Flynn, the police trooper,
and every one else at that place.